Elon Musk said when Tesla was founded, he thought the company would ‘most likely die’

Lucy Nicholson / REUTERS When Tesla was founded 12 years ago, Elon Musk was less than confident it would ever succeed, let alone become the wild success that it is today.

"If you would have asked me at the beginning of Tesla if I would have thought that we would be here, I would have said 'no.' I thought we would most likely not succeed. I thought we would most likely die," Musk said in a recent interview with Marketplace.

Of course, there days Tesla can't seem to make its cars fast enough to meet demand. The company's Model S P85D was recently rated by Consumer Reports as the best car it has ever tested and just last month it began delivery of its Model X crossover.

But Musk said that the reality is car start-ups are almost never successful. In fact, he said that Tesla is just one of two American car companies that has not gone bankrupt (the other of course being Ford Motors). All other major US automakers were at one point bankrupt and bailed out by the US government.

"My view at the start of Tesla is not my view today. Your probability of existence when you are a tadpole is much lower when you are a frog," Musk said in the interview. "In the beginning it was very risky, but now I think we are in pretty good shape."

Musk also said during the interview that excluding rockets, he is convinced that all other vehicles will also eventually be electric.

"Aircraft and ships and all other forms of transport will go fully electric. Not half electric, but fully electric. No question," he said.

In fact, Musk said that if he was not running Tesla, he would likely be working on an electric jet.

"I do like the idea of an electric aircraft company. I think one could do a pretty cool supersonic, vertical, take-off and landing electric jet. That would be really fun...I have a design in mind for that. But I already have too many things on my plate to do," Musk said.

"Then of course there is the Hyperloop, I'd probably be working on that."